


Nick & Takeo - #04 - Wonder

by zosimos (trismegistus)



Series: Tobira no Mukou e [11]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-30
Updated: 2010-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-09 19:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trismegistus/pseuds/zosimos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt #04 of 50</p><p>The boys make a discovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nick & Takeo - #04 - Wonder

The old ruins looked like bones sticking up out of the desert sands, the color bleached out by centuries of harsh, unrelenting sunlight. Takeo sat astride a camel, a long coat keeping the majority of his body out of the sun. The hood on his tan coat was up, and he squinted against the brilliant sun.

Nick rode on a camel as well, several yards behind Takeo. He was dressed similarly, long tan coat over his traveling clothes as protection against the elements. Takeo swung down off the camel, keeping tight hold on the beast's lead. They were well suited to the environment and if he didn't keep a tight hold on it, the camel would wander off.

The ruins weren't much to look at, several jutting pillars, many at angles that were not their original intent. Takeo laid his bare hand on one, craning his neck to look up at it, imagining the roof that the pillars may have held once, in the distant past.

Nick slid off his own camel, coming up beside Takeo. "They look Greek," he said.

"More Egyptian than Greek," Takeo said. Nick pursed his lips but he had to agree after another moment's thought. Takeo led his camel, walking amid the pillars and studying them. Takeo was looking for clues to the great civilization's disappearance, something that had happened many centuries ago. It was like the equivalent of their Atlantis, except this civilization disappeared from the middle of the desert with no explanation whatsoever. No natural disaster, no wars, just that commerce suddenly halted and when some merchants rode out to the city that it was completely empty of life. No animals, no humans, no life.

Of course the civilization had been pillaged; priceless works of art and alchemy stolen and destroyed, every single thing of value taken and most of the city set ablaze and wrecked. The only reason that nomads and desert tribes had not taken up residence and moved in to the now-abandoned city was the rumors that a great evil had taken the people, and that anyone who chose to live there were inviting that evil into their very lives.

It all sounded like the work of an ancient alchemist, on his quest for the Philosopher's Stone. The secret was eternally its prima materia; Takeo and Nick knew as well as top military brass that the prime ingredient in the Stone of the Sages was human lives. Not blood, not flesh, but their very souls.

Nick took the reins of his friend's camel so Takeo could examine the ruins more thoroughly. Everything of value had been pillaged centuries before, but occasionally alchemists would journey to the old city, in the hopes that they would be the one to discover a secret that hundreds of other scholars before them could not find.

Nick tied the reins together, and then tied them to one of the smaller pillars that jutted out of the sand. He crouched in the shade provided by the camels, long since used to their stink. Takeo was a small tan blur between the pillars, heat distorting Nick's vision. Idly, Nick began counting the pillars, drawing a tiny representation of them in the sand. This particular outpost was well known and passed by, it was off the beaten path by miles and had been mined to the extent of his usefulness decades ago. Every alchemist worth his salt who was investigating the ruins passed it by for the bigger parts of the city that still host boulevards surrounded by crumbling buildings.

Takeo had a gut feeling about it, and Nick was more than willing to follow Takeo on his gut feeling alone. However, Nick realized as he looked at what he'd drawn on the sand, Takeo's feeling had been right on.

The pillars, when upright, had been arranged to the points of an alchemy array. It was a familiar array to Nick, it was one of the first ones he had learned. Takeo would be the first to tell him, though, that what an Elric considered a simple array most would consider on a collegiate level.

It was an array to move the sand. Nick stood up and waved to Takeo, his throat to dry to want to yell across the sands but doing it anyway when Takeo waved back. "I've found something!"

Takeo came running over. "The pillars," he panted, his hood coming off and his scraggly black hair matted down with sweat. "They're an array!"

Nick opened his mouth and shut it, then clapped Takeo on the shoulder. "They are," he said. "They totally are, and we've got to fix them all if we want to activate it."

Takeo looked at the broken and jutting pillars cutting a staggered profile against the blistering desert, then back to Nick. "Then let's get started!"


End file.
